Obscure / underrated Star Wars games

[Nairume]

So when talking about early Star Wars platformers, a lot of people always default to the Super Star Wars Trilogy. After all, it's pretty, sounds great, somewhat faithful to the general story of the movies, and

uh

Well, it's pretty, sounds great, and is somewhat faithful to the story of the movies.

But I'd like to take a moment to highlight what came before it

This game is hard. Real hard. A lot of people bounce from it because it's so hard and seemingly impossible to figure out. Your initial "sandbox" is wandering around the Dune Sea, trying to find Obi Wan, the droids, and shield parts for the Millenium Falcon. You can bypass some of this stuff, but it ends up hurting you down the road. Then you get an insanely hard gauntlet of levels in Mos Eisley where you have to find Han and then escape to the Falcon. Then you get the blisteringly hard Falcon escape stage where you are flying through an asteroid field and have to dodge space debris. Hope you picked up all the shield parts while exploring the desert. Then you get the labyrinthine Death Star stages, peppered with some difficult bosses. Then you get two straight dogfighting stages (one with the falcon and one in an X-wing), finished off by a SHMUP Trench Run stage.

Along the way, "rescuing" Han and Leia unlocks them as playable characters with unique abilities to make certain areas of the game easier (though they are never required for said areas), each of whom have one life (think of them as Zero from MMX3). Rescuing Obi Wan also gives you bonus lives that can restore Han and Leia.

If this all sounds like it's a bad game, it's not! While difficulty with the early Star Wars platformers go hand in hand, this game is difficult for reasons that are different than the Super Trilogy. While the Super Trilogy is difficult because of incredible levels of jank, between infinitely respawning enemies, questionable hitboxes, and mechanics that never quite work, NES Star Wars is blisteringly hard because it's just a hard game. It demands incredible precision...but never punishes you unfairly. Either by playing carefully or experimenting along the way, you can very easily learn the quirks of the game and suddenly the difficulty starts to melt away, like you are an actual jedi. This game actually rules and it's a shame more people don't talk about it.

 

[GenTask]

Well people usually mention "TIE Fighter" as a must play, but both X-Wing and X-Wing Alliance are fun too.

Here's my pitch for why playing X-Wing is cool, you get to play as the Y-Wing pilot that you see survived the destruction of the first Death Star (Keyan Farlander). I remember watching A New Hope as a kid and thinking how cool it was that a Y-Wing pilot survived and then finding out there was a game you could play as that person.

I honestly wish someone would approve a straight up remake of all three of those games with the same characters, but with much "faster" flight mechanics so it feels like you're flying a jet in space. Even the XvT remake Squadrons feels too slow and way too bullet spongey, which is silly when you see a Y-Wing ace (Colonel Salm) straight up take out 2 TIE Interceptors with ease in RoTJ and relatively match the speed of X-Wings in that battle.

There are certainly other games:

- Dark Forces 2 and its lesser known expansion Mysteries of the Sith where you play as the badass future wife of Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade (but unless you are computer savvy, might have trouble fan-patching it to run on modern systems, has awesome live-acted scenes for a movie feel)
- Star Wars: Rebellion (the best and only old school SW 4X strategy game, very difficult if you don't know what to do)
- Star Wars: Force Commander (I would argue this is now the most obscure SW RTS game)
- Star Wars: Empire at War (the better known last 4x-like strategy game)
- Star Wars: Rebel Assault 1 & 2 (On Rails Shooter, the sequel is better, can be absurdly difficult so I turned on cheats when playing them recently just so I could see the cutscenes)

 

[Bigg]

Literally no one ever talks about this game and I have no idea why. It's made by Factor 5, aka the Rogue Squadron devs, and is basically Rogue Squadron 0. And I remember it being pretty good! I guess it just gets overlooked because it's not as memorable as Racer and not as ubiquitous as Jedi Power Battles in the pantheon of Episode 1 games.

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Well people usually mention "TIE Fighter" as a must play, but both X-Wing and X-Wing Alliance are fun too.

Here's my pitch for why playing X-Wing is cool, you get to play as the Y-Wing pilot that you see survived the destruction of the first Death Star (Keyan Farlander). I remember watching A New Hope as a kid and thinking how cool it was that a Y-Wing pilot survived and then finding out there was a game you could play as that person.

I honestly wish someone would approve a straight up remake of all three of those games with the same characters, but with much "faster" flight mechanics so it feels like you're flying a jet in space. Even the XvT remake Squadrons feels too slow and way too bullet spongey, which is silly when you see a Y-Wing ace (Colonel Salm) straight up take out 2 TIE Interceptors with ease in RoTJ.

There are certainly other games:

- Dark Forces 2 and its lesser known expansion Mysteries of the Sith where you play as the badass future wife of Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade (but unless you are computer savvy, might have trouble fan-patching it to run on modern systems, has awesome live-acted scenes for a movie feel)
- Star Wars: Rebellion (the best and only old school SW 4X strategy game, very difficult if you don't know what to do)
- Star Wars: Force Commander (I would argue this is now the most obscure SW RTS game)
- Star Wars: Empire at War (the better known last 4x-like strategy game)
- Star Wars: Rebel Assault 1 & 2 (On Rails Shooter, the sequel is better, can be absurdly difficult so I turned on cheats when playing them recently just so I could see the cutscenes)

Click to shrink...

X-Wing vs. TIE-Fighter was great, too. Especially the Balance of Power Addon which had a full single-player campaign.
But yeah, remakes of those would be great. Add an optional VR support and call it a day. Guaranteed hits.

Are you aware of the TIE-Fighter Total Conversion Mod for X-Wing Alliance? If not, check it out:

TIE Fighter: Total Conversion (TFTC) mod for Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance

This mod is a total conversion of the original 1994 game TIE Fighter into X-Wing Alliance. Offering all original 13 campaigns and expansions as well as a completely Reimagined campaign of the first 8 campaigns alongside it. Built upon the X-Wing Alliance...

www.moddb.com

 

[Bigg]

So when talking about early Star Wars platformers, a lot of people always default to the Super Star Wars Trilogy. After all, it's pretty, sounds great, somewhat faithful to the general story of the movies, and

uh

Well, it's pretty, sounds great, and is somewhat faithful to the story of the movies.

But I'd like to take a moment to highlight what came before it

This game is hard. Real hard. A lot of people bounce from it because it's so hard and seemingly impossible to figure out. Your initial "sandbox" is wandering around the Dune Sea, trying to find Obi Wan, the droids, and shield parts for the Millenium Falcon. You can bypass some of this stuff, but it ends up hurting you down the road. Then you get an insanely hard gauntlet of levels in Mos Eisley where you have to find Han and then escape to the Falcon. Then you get the blisteringly hard Falcon escape stage where you are flying through an asteroid field and have to dodge space debris. Hope you picked up all the shield parts while exploring the desert. Then you get the labyrinthine Death Star stages, peppered with some difficult bosses. Then you get two straight dogfighting stages (one with the falcon and one in an X-wing), finished off by a SHMUP Trench Run stage.

Along the way, "rescuing" Han and Leia unlocks them as playable characters with unique abilities to make certain areas of the game easier (though they are never required for said areas), each of whom have one life (think of them as Zero from MMX3). Rescuing Obi Wan also gives you bonus lives that can restore Han and Leia.

If this all sounds like it's a bad game, it's not! While difficulty with the early Star Wars platformers go hand in hand, this game is difficult for reasons that are different than the Super Trilogy. While the Super Trilogy is difficult because of incredible levels of jank, between infinitely respawning enemies, questionable hitboxes, and mechanics that never quite work, NES Star Wars is blisteringly hard because it's just a hard game. It demands incredible precision...but never punishes you unfairly. Either by playing carefully or experimenting along the way, you can very easily learn the quirks of the game and suddenly the difficulty starts to melt away, like you are an actual jedi. This game actually rules and it's a shame more people don't talk about it.

Click to shrink...

So I didn't play NES Star Wars, but I did play the Game Boy Star Wars, which I think is the same game design wise? Or at least very similar? Because everything you're describing lines up with what I remember of Star Wars GB.

I definitely remember it being brutally difficult but I kept playing it because I kept wanting to see how far I could get.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

So when talking about early Star Wars platformers, a lot of people always default to the Super Star Wars Trilogy. After all, it's pretty, sounds great, somewhat faithful to the general story of the movies, and

uh

Well, it's pretty, sounds great, and is somewhat faithful to the story of the movies.

But I'd like to take a moment to highlight what came before it

This game is hard. Real hard. A lot of people bounce from it because it's so hard and seemingly impossible to figure out. Your initial "sandbox" is wandering around the Dune Sea, trying to find Obi Wan, the droids, and shield parts for the Millenium Falcon. You can bypass some of this stuff, but it ends up hurting you down the road. Then you get an insanely hard gauntlet of levels in Mos Eisley where you have to find Han and then escape to the Falcon. Then you get the blisteringly hard Falcon escape stage where you are flying through an asteroid field and have to dodge space debris. Hope you picked up all the shield parts while exploring the desert. Then you get the labyrinthine Death Star stages, peppered with some difficult bosses. Then you get two straight dogfighting stages (one with the falcon and one in an X-wing), finished off by a SHMUP Trench Run stage.

Along the way, "rescuing" Han and Leia unlocks them as playable characters with unique abilities to make certain areas of the game easier (though they are never required for said areas), each of whom have one life (think of them as Zero from MMX3). Rescuing Obi Wan also gives you bonus lives that can restore Han and Leia.

If this all sounds like it's a bad game, it's not! While difficulty with the early Star Wars platformers go hand in hand, this game is difficult for reasons that are different than the Super Trilogy. While the Super Trilogy is difficult because of incredible levels of jank, between infinitely respawning enemies, questionable hitboxes, and mechanics that never quite work, NES Star Wars is blisteringly hard because it's just a hard game. It demands incredible precision...but never punishes you unfairly. Either by playing carefully or experimenting along the way, you can very easily learn the quirks of the game and suddenly the difficulty starts to melt away, like you are an actual jedi. This game actually rules and it's a shame more people don't talk about it.

Click to shrink...

There's also a Master System version with slightly better graphics.

 

[GenTask]

Are you aware of the TIE-Fighter Total Conversion Mod for X-Wing Alliance? If not, check it out:

TIE Fighter: Total Conversion (TFTC) mod for Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance

This mod is a total conversion of the original 1994 game TIE Fighter into X-Wing Alliance. Offering all original 13 campaigns and expansions as well as a completely Reimagined campaign of the first 8 campaigns alongside it. Built upon the X-Wing Alliance...

www.moddb.com

Click to shrink...

I am! A big thumbs up for more replayability (something to do after playing the vanilla XWA).

 

[Nairume]

There's also a Master System version with slightly better graphics.

Click to shrink...

It sounds and plays a little worse, though. The Game Gear version is actually more interesting, since it adds content on top of all of those versions.

So I didn't play NES Star Wars, but I did play the Game Boy Star Wars, which I think is the same game design wise? Or at least very similar? Because everything you're describing lines up with what I remember of Star Wars GB.

I definitely remember it being brutally difficult but I kept playing it because I kept wanting to see how far I could get.

Click to shrink...

It's mostly the same game, yeah, with some slight tweaks here and there.

 

[Deleted member 17210]

It sounds and plays a little worse, though. The Game Gear version is actually more interesting, since it adds content on top of all of those versions.

Click to shrink...

I never really got into any of the versions of that game but I did like Game Gear Return of the Jedi.

 

[Eamon]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds are some ones that come to mind!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is actually backwards compatible now, and if you're looking for a vehicular combat game - I'd suggest checking it out!

 

[Fuchsia]

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds.

A super solid RTS.

 

[Nairume]

I never really got into any of the versions of that game but I did like Game Gear Return of the Jedi.

Click to shrink...

Now that's a largely better version of GB Return of the Jedi, though that still renders both as a massively stripped down Super RotJ.

 

[RowdyReverb]

I don't think I've met anyone else who has heard of The Gungan Frontier, let alone played it. Kind of like SimLife. You have to manage the ecosystem on a planet so that the Gungan city can grow.

Click to shrink...

Wow, I played this and had forgotten all about it. Feeling some strong nostalgia

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

I don't think I've met anyone else who has heard of The Gungan Frontier, let alone played it. Kind of like SimLife. You have to manage the ecosystem on a planet so that the Gungan city can grow.

Click to shrink...

It's just so sad to see how every creativity with big franchises like Star Wars, Lords of the Ring etc... just died in the last 15 years. We need more smaller projects in franchises like this. It works pretty well for Warhammer. For a bunch of shit games you might get an interesting gem.

 

[Maxlar]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds are some ones that come to mind!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is actually backwards compatible now, and if you're looking for a vehicular combat game - I'd suggest checking it out!

Click to shrink...

And it even got FPS boosted!

 

[LapinLopLuna]

Episode 1 on ps1 was a lot of fun as a kid. I played it a ton.
Star Wars Demolition on the ps1. An arena vehicle combat game. I remember playing with my sister. Some fun stage hazards and destruction. I always found it funny it just had boba fett and his jet pack as a playable character vs all the other vehicles. He was just so small

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds are some ones that come to mind!

Star Wars: The Clone Wars is actually backwards compatible now, and if you're looking for a vehicular combat game - I'd suggest checking it out!

Click to shrink...

Glad to see Clone Wars getting shouted out. It's arguably stretching "obscure", but it gets very little discussion and I loved the hell out of it, so it rates "underrated" as far as I'm concerned lol. I rented it so many times on GCN I easily paid for it at least once over, but never actually owned it, so I was super excited when it hit BC.

(That was a helluva gen for Star Wars games though, so I'm not surprised it got overshadowed by the like of Rogue Squadron and KOTOR.)

 

[takeablake]

I had a PS1 and played the heck out of Masters of Teräs Käsi, Demolition, and especially Jedi Power Battles as a kid.

All of them were super janky, and I think my friends and I were well aware of that even at our age, but JPB especially was almost beloved by us even more for its jank. It was also infuriating for the glitches and precision needed for many jumping sequences, but I imagine I could still remember the locations of most power-ups, items, and secrets in JPB. I was delighted to see Plo Koon and even Adi Gallia pop up later in the Clone Wars show.

 

[Adathir]

I'm really happy to see others have already mentioned Yoda Stories because I loved playing it as a kid.

My choice would be Dark Forces. For me it took fps games to the next level at that time with the graphics, ability to jump, the music and story. It tied heavily into Legends canon and atleast one part has managed to find it's way into the current canon as well.

We really were spoiled for choice with Star Wars games throughout the 90s and 2000s.

 

[Tailesque]

These are games from my youth, so it's probably just the nostalgia talking, but remember that Pit Droids beign pretty fun tile-based puzzle game.
There's also Droidworks, in which you can create your own droids and send them through different trials. I remember it being kinda janky, but I had a good time with it.

If we're talking modern stuff, then I'd like to shout out Vader Immortal. It's a pretty basic VR game/Experience, but as someone who is into the new canon, I really love it.

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I was utterly obsessed with the Pit Droids game as a kid, even if I mostly used it as a toy rather than engaging with it as a puzzle game lol

 

[dskzero]

Star Wars Supremecy / Star Wars Rebellion

It had the core of a really great galactic conquest game, but it was very rough round the edges. Maybe add a Force Commander style ground battle module, make captial ship battles a bit more fun...could have been outstanding.

Palps bitching at me that it was my fault his diplomacy mission failed was always hilarious

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I hated this game so much because the notifications were relentless and endless.

I liked the old RTS games that were just reskinned Age of Empires, Galactic Battlegrounds.

I had no clue if they were good or not, it was mostly just funny.

 

[Nessus]

I had no clue if they were good or not, it was mostly just funny.

Click to shrink...

Age Of Empires II is great, and this is just reskinned AOE2 so it was good simply by virtue of that. At least the multiplayer was fun, never really bothered with the campaign.

 

[dskzero]

Age Of Empires II is great, and this is just reskinned AOE2 so it was good simply by virtue of that. At least the multiplayer was fun, never really bothered with the campaign.

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I honestly can't remember much except the Jedi and Sith all looked like they fought like this and it was fucking hillarious.

 

[The Bookerman]

Hey Car combat games are fun right ..... ?

 

[ConVito]

Super Bombad Racing on PS2 - absolute trash.

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I'll not just sit here and let my Saturday morning drug of choice in the mid-2000s suffer this slander. It's a perfectly serviceable kart racer with some pretty clever tracks and an absolutely broken super ability for Yoda that lets you mess up literally every racer at once. The gungan city track still sticks with me to this day as being way more fun than it has any right to be.

Literally no one ever talks about this game and I have no idea why. It's made by Factor 5, aka the Rogue Squadron devs, and is basically Rogue Squadron 0. And I remember it being pretty good! I guess it just gets overlooked because it's not as memorable as Racer and not as infamous as Jedi Power Battles in the pantheon of Episode 1 games.

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Agreed. Played this on N64 just as much as I did Rogue Squadron. It did everything that game did and more, and I loved the addition of speeders (and I think even a boat).

 

[xyla]

I'm not sure it's any good (haven't played much, since the controls are ridiculous), but there's also Force Commander

Visually it's totally my jam and what I wish Empire at War had looked like. But I don't think you can even play this anymore without a VM lmao

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I was so hyped for this game back in the day! Received mostly middling reviews irrc - I think I played a demo but never made it to the main game.

 

[KeRaSh]

Jedi Power Battles back on Dreamcast?

Click to shrink...

Played it on the PS1 but loved the game. Coop with my brother was a ton of fun.

 

[sionydus]

Hey Car combat games are fun right ..... ?

Click to shrink...

That one brings back some memories

 

[Ostron]

I was so hyped for this game back in the day! Received mostly middling reviews irrc - I think I played a demo but never made it to the main game.

Click to shrink...

Yeah same. I remember it being obtuse and difficult to control. I think reviews slammed the AI, both enemy and pathfinding etc. There have been times when I've begun researching it out of interest but any hopes of finding a hidden gem dies very quickly.

 

[wafflebrain]

Outside the Phantom Menace game that came out around the time of the movie I'm not sure I've played anything else that can be considered as underrated or more obscure when it comes to SW. Mysteries of the Sith might fit even though it was an expansion pack for Jedi Knight. I loved how both of these games had the labyrinthine level design DNA of id shooters (it was on the Quake engine after all), and I loved the mp maps that had traps in them you could spring on opposing players. Mysteries of the Sith had one in Jabba's palace where you could drop someone into the Rancor pit. Sadly there was no Rancor in it, though IIRC a community made map included one.

On a different tangent I'd love to see a SW game with the mobility and fast pace of Tartakovsky's Clone Wars translated to a third person action rpg. Fallen Order was alright but I want something way faster with twitch type momentum. Essentially its as fast as you are.

 

[SuperBanana]

I was so hyped for this game back in the day! Received mostly middling reviews irrc - I think I played a demo but never made it to the main game.

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I remember the camera was absolutely atrocious.

 

[Graven]

Jedi Power Battles was legit.

 

[Zaied]

For the longest, Bounty Hunter was that game for me; it's not as obscure these days after being ported to PS4 several years ago, but it's still not the most visible Star Wars game.

I actually played Bounty Hunter before I saw Attack of the Clones on DVD, so it was my introduction to Jango Fett who instantly became a favorite of mine (imagine my disappointment when I watched him get decapitated by Mace in the movie - almost felt like everything I had to overcome in the game was a waste). But if there's one positive thing I can still say about it nearly 20 years later, it's that the Coruscant missions are fantastic: starting from the lower levels, and then finally ascending all the way to the skyscrapers, might've been the highlight of the game. Also, being able to scan potential bounties was a pretty neat feature:

As for how the story connects to Legends, Bounty Hunter follows Jango prior to Attack of the Clones. Most notably, it shows him meeting Dooku for the first time, and striking the deal to become the template for the clones. Temuera Morrison also reprised his role as Jango, which helped legitimize the game as an important piece to his story. By now, Bounty Hunter has long been supplanted by Disney's canon (mostly via TCW and Age of Republic). At the time, though, it was a great attempt at further humanizing Jango; I only wish Disney had made Rozatta canon, so that his only friends weren't fellow bounty hunters now.

 

[Benjamin]

These are games from my youth, so it's probably just the nostalgia talking, but remember that Pit Droids beign pretty fun tile-based puzzle game.
There's also Droidworks, in which you can create your own droids and send them through different trials. I remember it being kinda janky, but I had a good time with it.

If we're talking modern stuff, then I'd like to shout out Vader Immortal. It's a pretty basic VR game/Experience, but as someone who is into the new canon, I really love it.

Click to shrink...

Yes thank you! This game has been in the back of my mind and couldn't think what it was. I had a demo of it and played it a lot but never bought it.

Wonder if it's on gog...

 

[Deleted member 10335]

.

 

[xyla]

Yeah same. I remember it being obtuse and difficult to control. I think reviews slammed the AI, both enemy and pathfinding etc. There have been times when I've begun researching it out of interest but any hopes of finding a hidden gem dies very quickly.

Click to shrink...

I remember the camera was absolutely atrocious.

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Yep, even in that screen, you can kind of sense that they had not figured out how to do 3D strategy in a way that would work in a cinematic AND gameplay sense.

 

[PSOreo]

I remember loving the Star Wars trilogy in Arcade machines as well as the pod racer arcade experience. Jedi Power Battles and Phantom Menace on PS1 were great fun. Wish I could play them again.

Oh and besides the obvious Battlefront games I enjoyed playing Revenge of the Sith on PS2. I rented that game and completed the shit out of it. Even got the alternate needing with Anakin winning.

 

[toadkarter]

Mysteries of the Sith might fit even though it was an expansion pack for Jedi Knight.

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I keep meaning to play this! This is the one with Mara Jade right? I own both the base game and the expansion but never got round to the expansion sadly, must check it out.

And definitely agree with you on Tartakovsky - to be honest I still kind of prefer that series to TCW 08. I know that the 3D series establishes a whole bunch of super important lore and the storytelling is amazing, particularly in the latter seasons, but I just really do not enjoy the art style. The stylised 2D look will always be better in my eyes! Delighted that it's up on Disney Plus.

 

[No Depth]

Literally no one ever talks about this game and I have no idea why. It's made by Factor 5, aka the Rogue Squadron devs, and is basically Rogue Squadron 0. And I remember it being pretty good! I guess it just gets overlooked because it's not as memorable as Racer and not as infamous as Jedi Power Battles in the pantheon of Episode 1 games.

Click to shrink...

Indeed, a very solid Rogue Squadron entry. Definitely overlooked.